Learn about Canada’s Digital Technology Supercluster and how SFU researchers are using it

By Justin Wong

Are you curious about Canada’s Digital Technology Supercluster (CDTS) network and how its resources can help with advancing research that benefits society?

On February 26, Simon Fraser University’s CDTS team is hosting an information session with Evgueni Loukipoudis, CDTS chief technology officer, at SFU’s Burnaby campus. The information session is open to all faculty and staff who would like to more learn about the supercluster and discuss the university’s role as an active member in the network. You’ll also learn how its resources can help advance research in personalized health, digital twins, data commons as well as building capacity in big data.

You’ll also learn how its resources can help advance research in personalized health care; digital twins (a virtual production environment for operations management, simulation, modelling and training); data commons (for storing and manipulating shareable data sets), and building capacity in big data.

WHERE: SFU’s Burnaby campus, SFU’s Big Data Hub, room: ASB 10900 (Applied Sciences Building)

WHEN: Wednesday, February 26, 2020 at 1:00 P.M. – 2:30 P.M.

COST: This info session is free, but registration is required.

In 2018, SFU joined CDTS, a Canadian government initiative led by a cross-industry collaboration among some of Canada’s biggest names in healthcare, telecommunications, natural resources, technology and transportation. SFU researchers from across the university are involved in five CDTS projects to help position Canada as a global leader in digital technology.

One of those researchers includes SFU computing science professor Martin Ester, who recently sat down with SFU News to discuss his CDTS project.

Tell us about your project with CDTS and how its findings hope to help Canadians.

We are part of a CDTS project with Terramera and a few other industry partners in the area of precision agriculture. The project’s goal is to discover and develop organic pesticides that will be as effective as current chemical pesticides. If successful, this project will help Canadian farmers not only to produce more crops, but do so in a more environmentally friendly manner.

How does these partnerships drive your research forward?

Thanks to the CDTS partnership we have formed a large team with complementary strengths. Our lab can focus on our strengths in data mining and machine learning to develop predictive models, while other partners provide the infrastructure and collect the data.

What was the main attraction to working with CDTS to fund your project and why not somewhere else?

One attraction was the potential to translate our research results into practical applications for the common good. The other attraction was the generous funding.

How will your project with CDTS benefit your students and your research area?

My students will work on real-life problems and gain valuable industry experience while collaborating closely with our industry partners. I believe the CDTS project will help inspire us to explore new, practical and relevant research directions, such as semi-supervised learning and active learning.